President Trump has said he wants to 'hire American'

President Donald Trump has tried to ban people from certain Muslim-majority countries from entering the U.S. and has begun deportation raids, following through on his campaign promise to creating a more cautious, less open America.

When measured by average income levels or education, Indians are the most accomplished group of migrants in the U.S. but that doesn’t mean they will necessarily be spared as Mr. Trump adds to restrictions on who is allowed to enter and stay.

Here are four charts that show how and why this highly successful community is worried.

At his inauguration, Mr. Trump vowed to “follow two simple rules; buy American and hire American.” A draft of an executive order for Mr. Trump’s consideration calls for the government to re-examine a range of visa programs to ensure they prioritize and protect “the jobs, wages and well-being of United States workers.”

Hundreds of thousands of Indians were admitted to the U.S. on the skilled-worker H-1B visas, more admissions than the next five countries combined. Meanwhile there are probably hundreds of thousands more Indians who hope to someday qualify for the privilege.

A story in The Wall Street Journal last week outlined how Silicon Valley technology firms are now distancing themselves from Indian outsourcing firms as lawmakers attempt to reign in the program. Companies—both foreign and domestic—that apply for H-1Bs say they recruit in other countries because of a high-skill labor shortage in the U.S. Critics say the outsourcers cycle Indian workers in and out on low salaries without attempting to find American talent.

Data from the Department of Homeland Security shows that India also has the third-highest number of arrivals of workers transferring with their company on the L1 visa, which allows companies to transfer managers, executives or people with specialized knowledge to the U.S.

Indians working in the U.S. are one of the biggest sources of remittances out of America. They sent home close to $12 billion in 2015, according to the latest World Bank data.

But it isn’t all tech workers. India is the fastest growing source of illegal immigrants as well. The number of illegal immigrants from India rose more than 40% in the five years to 2014, according to calculations by Pew Research Center. During the same period the number from Mexico fell 8%. Pew estimates, the number of unauthorized Indian immigrants in the U.S. reached a total of close to 500,000 and the number of Mexico-born illegal unauthorized migrants fell to 5.85 million.

I know all the economic arguments for globalization, and they make solid sense for American companies and consumers, but it is hard for me to see what becomes of the American economy if we totally outsource our arms and legs. Are we only to be a country of talking heads?

The article truly mixes up illegal immigration and various forms of legal immigration in a scare mongering manner.... doing a disservice to its readers who may not understand the subtleties of immigration policy and law

54% of startups in Silicon Valley are started by Indians. 74% of Nasdaq tech companies are run by C-level Indians. Hard working Indians are among the top earning Physicians and entrepreneurs as well in this nation.

@SAURABH SHARMA Not to mention that nearly $100 Billion of hotels and motels are owned by Indian Americans who employ over 1 million Americans... and pay directly nearly $1 Billion in taxes, and as a multiplier effect probably contribute closer to 5 times that much to public coffers

I am reminded of how Ben Franklin said that NJ was like a keg, tapped at both ends, one draining into NY, and the other draining into Philly. In other words, the only use people had for it, was getting from one place to the other. The US taxpayer has become something similar but more like a kind of cow, that is being milked by all these other countries for their betterment. I'm not sure who is paying attention here, but China has the second lowest number of L1 Visas, yet the second highest dollar amount of remittances.

@Gerry Dempsey You should know that the L1 program is mostly for intra company temporary transfer of top management level folks... often for multinational companies like Nestle, BMW, Jaguar, BP, Siemens, etc...Canadian, British and Indians have a lot of top management folks... the Chinese, due to language issues or otherwise... not so much... though with more and more purchase of US companies by Chinese ones...the numbers are bound to increase...

Stupid to compare percentage increase in number of illegal Indians vs Mexicans .. without actual numbers being cited the author is trying her level best to cover actual numbers of 5 million vs 0.5 million #FakeNews

Makes for good press but may have a significant impact on US competitiveness and innovation. Go ahead, slam the door, just make sure that your large hands (if you get the reference) or foolish head get banged Mr Trump.

@Nevdeep Gill -they are only hurting the Silicon Valley giants who really don't help the US economy from a average Joe perspective. Allowing companies to take advantage of cheap labor from countries like India et al. is the real crime here.

So what will happen when Boeing wants to sell planes to India or Domino's wants to expand to 1000 outlets across India? How about Caterpillar trying to cash in on infrastructure building plan of PM Modi. It is a two way street - maybe the traffic is unequal but let the market decide that.

@NITIN BHAKTA Some folks will cut their noses to spite their faces... Instead of arguing about how to make American workers more competitive in the world they want to go back to a nostalgic past which can NEVER be recreated... the USA is NEVER going to be 40+% of the world economy like it was in the 1960s...

That immense lopsidedness allowed for even low-skill workers in the USA to be well paid... but there is no economic reason why a bus driver in USA should earn 10X the wages of a bus driver in India. Similarly even for skilled workers like programmers and lawyers there is no economic reason for Americans to earn more than others who can do the same job

Restricted start up company A in the US versus start up company B with a similar product without restriction in th U.K. Which company do you think will be more competitive? Common sense. Politicizing the job issue is easy and yes it riles up the average joe but it is damaging to the culture of job creation itself.

@NITIN BHAKTA This is a backlash to globalization that assumed that individuals, companies, and local governments would mobilize to accommodate rapid and disruptive change... but unlike places like Japan and Scandinavia there is no appetite to do so... partly because those societies are much more homogenous... Currently in the USA there is no community feeling among the whole nation... instead it is a bunch of warring "tribes"... each feeling victimized and at the same time uncaring for the other...